Americans snicker over the sordid details of former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Internet escapades. But they pity his wife, Huma Abedin. They see an accomplished and beautiful woman betrayed by her husband’s Twitter posts. And she’s pregnant? The details just get worse and worse.

Abedin and other political wives before her have been forced to face the public flogging of their husbands, heightened in this case by the technological evidence that Weiner left behind and by the helpful testimony of his correspondents.

Americans love to debate the role of the wronged political wife. What will Hillary Clinton, Jenny Sanford, or Newt Gingrich’s wives (pick one) do? What should they do? Actress Julianna Margulies won an Emmy for her portrayal of “The Good Wife” on CBS. Will she ever leave her fictional cheating husband?

To which author Laura Munson says, “Stop.” Stop calling these women victims. Unless there are threats to her physical safety or financial security, only Abedin decides if she is a victim. (And she’s not talking publicly.)

When her own husband, suffering through a midlife crisis, threatened to break up their marriage to end his pain, Munson chose not to play the victim. Instead she planned a summer of joy for herself and her two kids — and her husband when he wanted to join them. She gave him six months to work through his crisis.

How did she stop herself from pleading with him or simply dumping him just to get it over with? How did she choose a third way?

Munson, author of the memoir “This Is Not the Story You Think It Is,” had recently committed to the end of suffering. After years of writing novels that weren’t published, the death of her father, and therapy, she decided that she — not anyone else — would decide her own happiness. That included her husband.

The same philosophy can apply to not-so-famous women facing infidelity or other crises that destroy their dreams and upend their lives. These crises can be opportunities to find your true calling, says Susan Piver, author of “The Wisdom of a Broken Heart.” If you don’t remember what makes you happy, imagine figuring it out and starting the seeds of a new life. (Again, this advice doesn’t apply if you are facing threats to your safety.)

Wait to make big decisions. If you’re not facing financial ruin or the threat of violence, wait at least a few months for the pain and anxiety to settle down. In the fog of pain, people make rash decisions. One of Munson’s friends was so unhappy in her life that she decided she had to get out of her marriage. She didn’t realize she didn’t really want out until she was gone. You need to figure out what you want.

Focus on the present moment. When the crazy thoughts are going through you head about who did what to who, and why didn’t you say that perfect comeback line, Piver suggests taking out a piece of paper and writing down five things that you notice are actually happening around you.

They’re usually pretty ordinary — cars driving by, the dog barking, a child playing with dolls. Go a little deeper and notice three things a little more carefully. Write those observations down. That list, part of a group of exercises in her book, isn’t ever as crazy as what’s in your head. It can have a calming effect.

Create something now. Take charge of your own joy. Munson didn’t simply plan a summer of fun for her family. She thought deliberately about what she could do to make herself and her two children happy during their financially strapped summer in their Montana town.

It was often as simple as taking three deep breaths or walking down the block. Sometimes she walked to a beautiful place or visited friends who helped keep the focus on herself, instead of trashing the husband. She turned on the sprinklers and watched her kids get soaked. She bought many tomatoes and canned tomato sauce. “Do something that is positive and nurturing to you,” she says.

Give up on the dream. Many people create a storyline or myth for their lives that says they will be powerful when they are pretty or handsome, skinny, married, a parent, or have the “right” job or salary.

“If you’re only powerful when it goes a certain way, then what happens when you lose your job?” asks Munson. Do you not matter anymore? Figure out the myths you tell yourself about your definition of success before you can move on.

Look for your truth. Take some quiet time in prayer or meditation to get through other people’s voices, and what the culture says about what your life should be like, to your essential truth.

“The advice for anyone going through a trauma is to allow the sorrow and vision for what you thought life should be to dissolve and see what’s left,” says Piver. “You have all the knowledge you need to solve your problems inside of you.”

Choose your own feelings. It’s incredibly hard to do, but Munson says it’s essential. After all, we only truly believe other people’s mean comments about ourselves when we think they’re true — that we’re unlovable or fat or nagging or mean-spirited.

“What if someone told you when you were 12 that nobody can make you feel mad, make you cry just by what they say?” she asks. “What if we had really understood that no one could make you feel emotionally anything?” Repeat after me: Those barbs are not necessarily true.

Do not play the victim. You are only a victim in an emotional crisis if you choose to be. “When we get into reaction and escalating the drama, it only hurts us,” says Munson. “There is a time and place for anger, but I want to powerfully choose those moments — I don’t want to feel like they’re choosing me.”

A liberal Democratic congressman who came under fire for a lewd photo that briefly appeared on his Twitter account over the weekend told CNN Wednesday that he did not post the image.

Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner spoke to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer a day after a contentious exchange with reporters in which he refused to directly answer any questions about the picture.

On Wednesday he said he had hired a law firm to look into the matter. But he declined to directly answer whether he appeared in the photo.

“Photos can be manipulated. Photos can be of one thing and changed to something else. We’re going to try to get to the bottom of what happened,” he said. The photo showed the lower body of a man wearing underwear.

A conservative blogger who broke the story has called for a full investigation of what he said was either the hacking of a congressman’s account or something Weiner wants to hide.

But Weiner told CNN he did not think such steps are necessary to deal with what he said was internet spam, an issue that many Americans face.

“Just because it happened to Congressman Weiner on his personal account doesn’t mean that the taxpayers should pay for an investigation,” he said. “I’m going to turn it over to some people who are going to give me advice on what to do next.

“This seems like it was a prank to make fun of my name, the name Weiner. It happens a lot,” he added.

Asked whether he was protecting anyone, Weiner replied, “Yes, I’m protecting my wife, who every day is waking up to these insane stories that are getting so far from reality. You know, we’ve been married less than a year.”

He also declined to say what he had written in direct messages to Twitter followers.

“I’m not going to get into how I communicate with people on social media. There was nothing … inappropriate,” he said.

An e-mail that Twitter sent to members of Congress Wednesday lists several online security tips, according to a copy of the e-mail CNN obtained. The message does not specifically mention the photo posted on Weiner’s page, but notes that questions about account security have surged recently.

“Some of you inquired today about the security of Twitter accounts,” Twitter’s Adam Sharp wrote. “While we won’t comment on individual accounts, news reports of the past few days are a good reminder of the importance of actively protecting your account credentials.”

Weiner on Tuesday told reporters he wasn’t interested in talking about the issue any more, saying he already made statements over the Memorial Day weekend after the photo turned up on his Twitter account Friday night.

In a heated exchange with reporters, he repeatedly dodged direct questions about the photo.

“If I were giving a speech to 45,000 people, and someone in the back threw a pie or yelled out an insult, I would not spend the next two hours of my speech responding to that pie or that insult. I would return to the things that I want to talk about,” Weiner said in response to a question about whether he sent the lewd photo to a Seattle woman.

He also refused to say why he hasn’t asked law enforcement to investigate if in fact his account was hacked, as he has said it was.

Despite repeated efforts by reporters, Weiner did not directly answer questions about the photo.

In earlier comments, when asked if the photo was of him, Weiner deflected the question.

“I’m not going to talk about this anymore,” he said, adding: “I’m going to get back to the conversation I care about,” including economic issues and what he calls a conflict-of-interest situation involving conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the health care reform law. The New York Democrat is a leading liberal voice in Congress.

Asked several questions about the Twitter situation Tuesday, Weiner stuck to his message.

“I understand you’re doing your job, but I’m going to go back to work now,” Weiner said at one point. When asked if he was concerned about being hacked, he responded: “I’m going to return to working on the things I care about. I participated in the story a couple of days now, given comments on it. This is a distraction and I’m not going to let it distract me.”

When a reporter noted the distraction might go away if he answered the questions, Weiner answered: “I’m not convinced of that.

“I’m not convinced there’s any value of me talking about it,” Weiner said.

Asked again if he was the man in the photo, Weiner responded again that he had made previous statements and now it was time for him to get back to work.

On Wednesday, Weiner told CNN that he regretted “the way that I handled it yesterday and I’m trying to do a better job today.”

Previously, Weiner blamed the photo on a hacker who got control of his social-networking accounts and played a prank. Weiner’s spokesman, Dave Arnold, said Monday the congressman has retained an attorney to look into the situation.

No formal criminal investigation has been launched, which rankles Andrew Breitbart, whose conservative website biggovernment.com first reported the photo on Weiner’s Twitter account in connection with a tweet to a Seattle woman.

Breitbart, who has been involved in questionable tactics against Democrats and liberals in the past, told CNN on Tuesday that the case warrants further investigation.

“There’s something fundamentally different between a prank and a hack — a prank is innocuous, a hack is criminal,” Breitbart said, later adding he wanted a full investigation by the FBI and Capitol Police.

However, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Tuesday he believed the situation was a harmless prank unworthy of further investigation.

“Twitter is not a very secure environment,” Toobin said, noting that information on the site can be unreliable “and doesn’t even come from the people it appears to come from.”

He added: “There’s a famous expression — don’t make a federal case out of it.”

[Numerologically a person’s life lesson number stands for themself. Andrew Breitbart was born on February 1st, 1969. 2 + 1 +1+9+6+9 = 28 = his life lesson.

Anthony Weiner’s 28 day indicates that Andrew Breitbart (whose life lesson number is 28) is significant to him on Monday June 6th, 2011.]

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using the number/letter grid:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z

Where:

A = 1 J = 1 S = 1

B = 2 K = 2 T = 2

C = 3 L = 3 U = 3

D = 4 M = 4 V = 4

E = 5 N = 5 W = 5

F = 6 O = 6 X = 6

G = 7 P = 7 Y = 7

H = 8 Q = 8 Z = 8

I = 9 R = 9

Anthony Weiner

1 55 5

his primary challenge (AW), the most important thing for him not to do (AE), and what he must not do (AE) all = 15 = Lying. Telling lies.

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June 16, 2011 10:06 a.m. EDT

Rep. Anthony Weiner plans to resign from Congress in the wake of a “sexting” scandal with several women and lies he repeatedly told about it, a Democratic source with knowledge of Weiner’s plans said Thursday.

Weiner, 46, was considered a possible front-runner to succeed New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2013 until the revelation of his online communications, including lewd photos of himself he sent to women he befriended on Facebook and Twitter.

Last year, Weiner married Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton in the White House, Senate and now in the State Department. Former President Bill Clinton officiated the ceremony, and Abedin is pregnant with the couple’s first child.

First elected to the House in 1998 after his political mentor, then-Rep. Chuck Schumer, decided to run for the Senate, Weiner has been a reliable liberal voice for the solidly Democratic 9th District, encompassing parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

Weiner basically ran unopposed in 2006 and 2008 and won by 22 points over his Republican opponent in 2010, easily avoiding the GOP tidal wave that swept over the House.

As a politician, Weiner fully embraced social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, using the platforms to unleash his comedic take on life and politics.

He graduated from the State University of New York Plattsburgh and worked as an aide to Schumer from 1985 to 1991. A year later, he served on the New York City Council.

Throughout his time in office, Weiner has found himself drawn back to New York, the city he calls home. He ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic mayoral primary race in 2005. But most observers now feel the scandal has ruined any chance of his being elected mayor in 2013.

As Rep. Anthony Weinermade the bombshell admission Monday that he has sexted six women over the last three years, some of his Internet relationships began to reveal themselves, along with a mountain of racy correspondence they say they’ve received from the married Congressman.

26-year-old Meagan Broussard, a single mother from Texas, offered up photos, emails, Facebook messages and more from her month-long Internet affair with Weiner in interviews on Monday.

Broussard became the face of Weiner’s online transgressions when photos the Congressman sent her were posted to Andrew Breitbart‘s conservative site BigGovernment.com. She says she first connected with Weiner on April 20 when she commented he was “hot” on a YouTube video he posted to Facebook, and he reached out “almost immediately.”

They began exchanging flirty messages “within an hour,” she says, the nature of which was often sexual. “He was trying to get me to talk about myself sexually, and I said, straight up, I’m not an open book,” she wrote in a statement on BigGovernment.com. “He would ask me weird things, like ‘Did you miss me?’ I didn’t understand that–how could I miss someone I hadn’t met and didn’t know?”

Broussard later received numerous graphic images from Weiner’s private Yahoo email account, RockOh77@yahoo.com. The emails included a photo of a man’s erect penis as well as a shot of a shirtless man at a desk whose face – distinctly recognizable as Weiner’s – is only partially visible. In his emotional press conference, Weiner acknowledged the possibility that X-rated photos of himself could be floating around the Internet.

“I just thought at the time that there’s gotta be something, there’s way more girls out there. This is not just me,” Broussard told Fox News. “There’s just a lot more girls, that’s what I thought that the time, like this is something that’s regular, he’s done this all the time; he’s comfortable.”

Broussard says she is coming forward to protect her family. (ABC News)

Lisa Weiss, a 40-year-old blackjack dealer in Las Vegas, claims to be another of Weiner’s online mistresses. She told RadarOnline she sexted back and forth with Weiner for nine months, and that the Congressman used government resources to hide his bad behavior. She even claims he called her from his office for a 30-minute phone sex chat.

Though he called the situation a “prank” and himself a “victim” last week, Weiner admitted Monday that he did in fact tweet the infamous crotch photo at the center of the scandal, saying he meant to send it privately to an Oregon college student but accidentally send it publicly. “The picture was of me and I sent it,” he told reporters, later confirming that Broussard was one of the many women he sent lewd photos to.

“I didn’t think it was him,” Broussard told ABC, explaining her skepticism during their early correspondence. “I thought for sure, ‘why would someone in that position be doing this?'”

One of many flirty Twitter photos Anthony Weiner shared, obtained by BigGovernment.com

She says she is only coming forward to reveal her identity now because she was afraid the private messages she sent to Weiner would be published as he was investigated, and she didn’t want to be mis-represented.

“I thought I could just be private about it, but there’s no reason for me to hide,” she said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know him. I’m just putting my story out there before anyone else tries to.”

“I’m not on a crusade to ‘take him down,'” she wrote in her statement. “I just acted to protect myself and my family.”

On Monday afternoon, in the Sheraton Hotel’s New York West ballroom, it felt, at times, like there were two press conferences happening at once. One featured the spectacle of a teary-eyed and emotionally wrenched Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) apologizing for his online indiscretions. The other showcased a combative Andrew Breitbart doing his best to hijack the moment.

The conservative media provocateur spoke before, after and during Rep. Weiner’s admission of sending sexually charged emails to six different women.

It was supposed to be Weiner’s press conference — so why was Breitbart on the stage? He had decided to attend, he told the scores of assembled press corps members, partly because his hotel was “coincidentally” located three blocks away.

But, Breitbart also noted, “I’m here to watch myself be vindicated.” He attempted to turn Weiner’s press conference into a battle in his ongoing war against the so-called mainstream media, criticizing outlets that included Salon and The Daily Kos.

No one from Weiner’s office pre-screened the press at the sometimes-chaotic news conference, which was held with about an hour’s advance notice. At one point, before Weiner had taken the stage, someone from the crowd — it was difficult to tell if they were a member of the media or just an onlooker — asked Breitbart to break from a press huddle he was holding on the side of the ballroom and walk up to the podium at the front of the room set aside for Weiner.

“If he’s paying for this I find this to be a tad rude,” Breitbart said, and then went ahead, at 3:58 p.m.

Weiner had scheduled his conference to start at 4 p.m. When people tuned in, though, they saw not the Congressman, but Breitbart, who took questions for approximately 13 minutes before leaving the podium. Fox News reported that Weiner’s aides ran down the hall to inform him that Breitbart was there.

Breitbart defended Big Government’s reporting on Weiner, as well as on past stories, saying his website “didn’t get into conjecture.”

He expressed particular ire toward the online magazine Salon, and claimed that Weiner was “complicit” in a media campaign blaming Breitbart for the whole debacle — and thus owed the media entrepreneur an apology.

“Given the fact that Congressman Weiner made much of last week about trying to blame me, and much of the left-wing media tried to make last week about blaming me, including claiming that I outed the name of the girl in Seattle that he sent the tweet to, which is false, and also claiming that I was the hacker, I felt that I needed to set the record straight,” he told Fox News in a phone interview.

Just when you thought the Weinergate situation couldn’t get any worse, apparently, per TMZ, it can.

The site reported very early this morning: “Weiner and former porn star Ginger Lee exchanged scores of sexual emails over a long period of time. When the underwear scandal broke on May 28, Lee began receiving calls from the media, and Weiner was more than happy to help her control the situation … by lying. On June 2, Weiner emailed Lee, “Do you need to talk to a professional PR type person to give u advice? I can have someone on my team call. [Yeah, my team is doing great. Ugh].

“It’s unclear if Weiner’s PR team is from his Congressional staff. If so, Weiner could run afoul of House Ethics Rules [and] the law.”

When the Weiner story started coming to light in the conservative blogosphere, as our Alison Gendar noted on Sunday, it “sparked curiosity about why Weiner followed a bunch of good-looking young women on Twitter, including some college students and porn star Ginger Lee. He said he dropped Lee once he learned who she was. The rest were a random selection of politicians – friends and foes – and ordinary citizens who asked to follow him first.”

Lee, whose film credits include “Sweet As Candy” and “Legal At Last #4,” even got a custom-tailored statement from Weiner to send out to nosy reporters, TMZ said — complete with a misspelling for that authentic touch.

The statement Weiner suggested read: “I have nothing to do with the situation involving Rep Weiner. I follow his twitter feed. And for a brief time he followed me. Much has been made of the fact that I have posted about my admiration for Rep Weiner and his politics. All I can say about that is that I’m a fan of his. Rep. Weiner sent me one short direct message thanking me for following him. I have never met Rep. Weiner and he has never sent me anything innappopriate (sic) …”

Lee has tweeted that she has (or maybe had) “Weinermania” and that she wanted to get intimate with the congressman — something he swears never happened with any of the women he flirted with on the web.

Several women have already come forward in the media to say they received explicit photos, texts and phone calls from the playful pol.

Just when you didn’t think it could get worse, new X-rated text messages were made public today where Rep. Anthony Weiner got down and dirty with one of the women he had befriended on Facebook — even telling her that he was prepared to travel to Nevada to bed her.

In a series of dirty chat messages dating back to Sept. 17, 2010, Weiner wrote to 40-year-old Lisa Weiss — a Nevada blackjack dealer who went back and forth with Weiner on Facebook for more than a year — that he was interested in meeting her.

“i’m ready for a vegas trip. truth telling during the day. got a night plan for us?” Weiner wrote, according to a transcript of 220 messages posted on RadarOnline.com.

“haha..that was a very loaded questions! i’ve got all kinds of night plans for us! when are you coming?” she replied.

“dunno. make me an offer i can’t refuse,” Weiner shot back.

The horny Democratic lawmaker ended the sexting session by boasting about his penis size.

“you’d be surprised how big’,” he wrote.

The raunchy texts didn’t end there.

Two days later, Weiss wrote, “you are a naughty boy! i’ll have to wait to share all of the details till i meet you in person.

On Sept. 21, Weiss wrote, “oooohhh…i bet you look hot in tights! can i be your sidekick? get your ass to vegas!!”

“i cat wait to meet you in person! and i’ll stare at your weapon if i want to, dammit! I understand this reelection stuff may take some time, but i really feel that my needs are waayyy more important! what is kinda funny is that i was looking at my fb page for something and i had posted that i wanted to bang you like a month ago! i think it was after you called [Sen. Joseph Lieberman] a pr–k!” she wrote.

Weiner and Weiss texted nearly every day — and most of the time it was dirty.

On Sept. 25, after not communicating for a few days, Weiner wrote, “where did my favorite dirty facebooker go? i’m getting kind of addicted to you.”

“okay…what the hell happened to you> i was enjoying our fb love affair..where’d you go? are you fb cheating on me?” Weiss wrote.

Two months later, on Jan. 20, Weiner wrote: “baby where have YOU been? how are you?”

“i have been here…just waiting for you to come and visit me in vegas when you are done saving the country from the evil republicans!” Weiss replied.

In March, the Facebook relationship got intense again after Weiner sent Weiss more pics of himself.

“Whoa, looks like I am wanna ride it?” Weiss wrote.

“hard for me?” Weiner replied.

“you like me big and fat,” said Weiner.

“only ur c–k,” she replied.

The texts come a day after a sniffling and “deeply ashamed” Weiner ‘fessed up on Monday to spending the past three years exchanging steamy online messages and sex-fueled phone chats with six women — sending some of his most tawdry sexts after marrying his high-powered wife last year.

Weiner acknowledged that he had engaged in inappropriate contact with six women over the course of three years through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and occasionally over the phone.

He said he had never met or had a physical relationship with any of the women and was not even sure of their ages.

Weiner also said he had never had sex outside of his marriage. He married Huma Abedin, who is tasked with accompanying Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on diplomatic globetrotting missions, last July.

Weiner said over and over during a news conference Monday that he had made “terrible mistakes” and done “a very dumb thing” for which he alone bore responsibility.

After Weiner and the women exchanged X-rated messages for months — the entire time of which Weiner was married — Weiss wrote on June 1 that he “owed” her for keeping their steamy Facebook sessions a secret.

“u owe me big time for keeping this all quiet…i am defending u to the death on every blog and to everyone….telling everyone u would never send dirty messages to women.

“i know u haven’t been on here since u were hacked but i NEED to talk to u…someone contacted me about u…call me or something.”

The scandal began more than a week ago when a conservative website reported that a photo of a man’s crotch had been sent from Weiner’s Twitter account to a college student in Seattle.

For days, Weiner claimed that he hadn’t sent the photo and that he was the victim of a hacker. But Weiner caused confusion when he said that he couldn’t say with “certitude” that the underwear shot was not a picture of him.

The scandal escalated Monday when the website, BigGovernment.com, run by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, posted photos purportedly from a second woman who said she received shirtless shots of the congressman.

The site said the pictures were in a cache of intimate online photos, chats and email exchanges the woman claimed to have.

what she must do/has to do and how she obtains/loses her heart’s desire = LS = 31 = Scandal. Controversy. Stirring things up. Provoking a reaction.

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By all accounts, Huma Abedin, the wife of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-New York), has been unwittingly pushed into the spotlight following her husband’s admission on Monday that he sent lewd photos to women he had met online.

Abedin, who’s 34, was noticeably absent at the press conference when a tearful Weiner, 46, confessed to the inappropriate relationships but also said that he and his wife “have no intention of splitting up over this.”

So just who is Huma Abedin?

Known as “Hillary Clinton’s secret weapon,” Abedin began working for the secretary of state as an intern in 1996, before the first lady herself became a focus of attention as a bystander in the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal.

In a 2007 New York Observer profile (it should be noted that Abedin declined to be interviewed for it) then Hillary Clinton press secretary Philippe Reines called Abedin “one in a million,” but conceded “that would mean there are 5,999 others in the world just like her, and there simply aren’t.”

Wedding season for Bill and Hillary Clinton! Daughter Chelsea is walking down the aisle later this summer, but first up: a celebration of the upcoming marriage of Rep. Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, Hillary’s longtime personal aide.

The Clintons hosted a garden party Wednesday night at their Embassy Row home with more than 300 people, a sumptuous buffet of Mideastern food and a sign with the couple’s wedding date, “7-10-10,” near the pool.

“I have one daughter,” said the former president, pulling Chelsea into a hug. “But if I had a second daughter, it would Huma.”

The striking brunette, 34, has been working as Hillary’s right hand since 1996, and at her side through the Senate and presidential campaigns and move to the State Department last year. Abedin quietly started dating Weiner, 45, two years ago, and they announced their engagement last summer.

It was “love at first sight” for Weiner, Hillary told the crowd Wednesday. The Clintons encouraged the match between the Muslim beauty who grew up in Saudi Arabia and the Jewish Democrat from New York City. The couple represents, Bill said in his toast, what he wants “the future of the world to be.”

The party was filled with family, Clinton friends (Terry McAuliffe, Melanne Verveer, Bob Barnett), and plenty of pols including most of the New York delegation. Guests lingered late into the night, then the secretary of state left Thursday for a visit to Europe — the first State Department trip without Abedin, who stayed behind to finalize plans for the wedding.